1. Enlightened Physiognomics: The Terms of the Debate

Melissa Percival

From The Appearance of Character: Physiognomy and Facial Expression in Eighteenth-Century France (1999), pp. 13-40, doi:10.59860/td.c48abd5

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Part of the book: The Appearance of Character

Melissa Percival

MHRA Texts and Dissertations 47

W. S. Maney & Son Ltd for the Modern Humanities Research Association

EnlightenmentFrenchPhilosophyopen

Abstract.  An examination of physiognomy in the eighteenth century might well begin as late as 1775. It was then that Johann Caspar Lavater published the first volume of his Physiognomische Fragmente, sparking what Georg Christoph Lichtenberg described as the 'Raserei für Physiognomik', or popular 'physiognomical frenzy' which lasted until well into the following century.

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